The Recovery of Mount St. Helens

On Sunday, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. Roughly 150 square miles of the surrounding forest were burned; some scorched trees stood as dead cinders, while others were blown down. Meanwhile, a massive ash plume darkened the sky of Washington, and the ash fell throughout the region, reaching nearby cities and dusting everything. When it was over, the area surrounding the volcano was a gray, burnt-out wasteland. 57 people died that day.

Today, that wasteland is a green forest again. In the video below, timelapse Landsat satellite imagery shows how vegetation returned to the area. Important note: Landsat didn't have a way to show green until 1984, so the first few slides here show vegetation as red. Starting in 1979 (before the eruption), you can see the gray destruction, and the return of the forest as the years pass.

In the video below, you can watch Japanese ad agency Dentsu transform passing time into art. According to Adweek, the project was commissioned by Japanese stationery brand Hitotoki, which produces crafting materials. To celebrate the value of handmade items in an increasingly fast-paced world, Dentsu created a film advertisement for their client depicting their goods as a stop-motion clock.

The timepiece ticks off all 1440 minutes in the day, and was assembled in real-time against a colored backdrop during a single 24-hour take. Its "hands" were crafted from different combinations of some 30,000 disparate small items, including confetti, cream puffs, tiny toys, silk leaves, and sunglasses.

"In a world where everything is so hectic and efficient, we wanted to bring the value of 'handmade' to life," explains Dentsu art director Ryosuke Miyashita in a press statement quoted by Stash Media. "We created different combinations of small Hitotoki brand items to express each and every minute."

You can check out a promotional video for the project below, which details the arduous crafting process, or view a real-time version of the clock here.

A Storm-Chasing Photographer Creates a Dramatic Video of Supercell Thunderstorms

BY Kirstin Fawcett

June 9, 2017

Vimeo

Most people flee inside at the sight of thunderclouds, but Chad Cowan runs towards them. As Colossal reports, the Kansas-based photographer and filmmaker has spent the past decade chasing storms across America’s Tornado Alley, a storm-prone region in the southern plains of the central United States.

Cowan’s goal, according to his website, is “to capture the awe inspiring beauty of nature in the most extreme and violent weather on Earth.” And with the timelapse video below, which Cowan created with friend Kevin X Barth, he does just that. Called Fractal, the three-minute film features the most awe-inspiring moments from hundreds of supercell thunderstorms, which Cowan recorded in high definition “over the last six years from Texas to North Dakota and everywhere in between,” he explains on Vimeo.

“The project started out as wanting to be able to see the life cycles of these storms, just for my own enjoyment and to increase my understanding of them,” Cowan writes. “Over time, it morphed into an obsession with wanting to document as many photogenic supercells as I could, in as high a resolution as possible, as to be able to share with those who couldn't see first-hand the majestic beauty that comes alive in the skies above America's Great Plains every Spring.”